With all due respect to Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin, the true real MVPs in the NHL these days are guys like Tim Burke in San Jose, or Jim Nill in Detroit or David Conte in New Jersey and others who shepherd scouting staffs on premium teams.

When the salary cap was introduced, the league was supposed to be about younger free agents moving from team to team.

Instead, it's probably more about scouting and drafting than it has ever been.

If you look at Detroit and San Jose, the top two teams in the Western Conference, they are overflowing with homegrown players, athletes who were drafted and developed in their system.

The Sharks, who haven't lost in regulation since Feb. 20, have 14 of their own draft picks playing prominent positions. Detroit has a dozen draft picks on its squad, plus college free agent signee Brett Lebda.

Anaheim doesn't have as many, but the Ducks scouting has played a key role in their success because they were able to turn draft picks Joffrey Lupul and Ladislav Smid into Chris Pronger. Also, assistant general manager David McNab's push to sign college free agents produced the likes of Dustin Penner, Chris Kunitz, Andy McDonald and Ryan Carter, who each played a role in last year's Stanley Cup championship team.

In Detroit this season, Valtteri Filppula, a third-round draft pick, blossomed into a 20-goal scorer when he was tabbed to replaced department free agent Robert Lang as the No. 2 center.

Johan Franzen, another third-rounder, surprised even the Red Wings by becoming the team's third-leading scorer with 26 goals.

The salary cap system was supposed to be about all teams being on equal financial footing and general managers, from large and small markets, being able to jump into a rich free agent pool every summer.

But that hasn't happened. The true symbols of the salary cap world are players such asSan Jose's Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who played almost 160 games on the Sharks' defense before his 21st birthday, or defenseman Douglas Murray, an eighth-round pick out of Cornell who is plus-21 this season for the Sharks.

The key to staying in contention is having a steady stream of inexpensive younger players stepping in

When Nashville lost Paul Kariya, Kimmo Timonen, Scott Hartnell and Peter Forsberg this summer, it wasn't the free agent acquisition of Radek Bonk that allowed this team to stay in playoff contention. It was years of good drafts that gave them young defensemen such as Ryan Suter, Dan Hamhuis and Shea Weber, who could play more minutes, or a dynamic forward such as Alexander Radulov, who would mature into a 26-goal scorer.

The story is the same in Eastern Conference where Montreal, New Jersey and Pittsburgh all have plenty of draft picks on their roster. In New Jersey, their top four scorers, and six of their top eight, are homegrown. In Montreal, draft picks like Carey Price, Mike Komisarek, Tomas Plekanec, Mark Streit, Chris Higgins and Andrei Markov are crucial to the team's success. Streit is a ninth-round pick, and Markov was taken in the sixth round.

With the salary cap preventing large market teams from stockpiling talent, there is indeed less tolerance and patience for any long-term rebuilding plan. General managers are expected to repair as they rebuild. This system does allow for some quick fixes, as Washington and Philadelphia did in the East, and Colorado did to a lesser extent in the West with the signing of Ryan Smyth and Scott Hannan.

But that won't provide lasting success. A poor drafting history now hurts a franchise far more than ineffective penalty killing. Good coaching can solve problems, but it can't overcome a lack of talent. Tampa Bay, Atlanta and the New York Islanders don't have many homegrown players on their rosters this season, and they are the worst three teams in the Eastern Conference. The Hockey News recently ranked all teams' collection of prospects, and Atlanta was 23rd, the Islanders were 24th and Tampa Bay was 30th. The Toronto Maple Leafs, another team with a poor drafting history, also missed the playoffs. They were 28th on the Hockey News list.

Fans in those cities are undoubtedly hoping their teams improve themselves with a couple of free agent acquisitions or a trade or two this summer.

But if management is smart in those cities, what it should do is overhaul the thinking, or perhaps the personnel, making the drafting decisions. To win in this league, you need as many All-Stars on your scouting staff as you need in your lineup.

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Mark Streit, fifth on the NHL's defenseman scoring list, was drafted 262nd overall in 2004 by the Montreal Canadiens.

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